The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘One of the Perks of Being a Guy’

Posted on | October 13, 2011 | 14 Comments

Having been busy lately planning for our trip to Vegas for Tuesday’s big debate, I confess to having fallen behind in my job of keeping readers up-to-date on other important developments unrelated to the GOP presidential primary campaign. Thanks to James Tararanto of the Wall Street Journal, however, we have this Breaking News Update from the Vancouver Sun:

“Being able to pee standing up is one of the perks of being a guy, perhaps even a rite of passage.”

In case you missed that banner headline at Drudge …

Also, in other vital news: The FBI has arrested the vicious criminal hacker who illegally obtained nude photos of Scarlett Johansson:

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

If this guy was a New York Times reporter, the ACLU would be defending him under the First Amendment as a heroic crusader for “the people’s right to know” what Scarlett Johansson’s nipples look like. Meanwhile, in an entirely unrelated development, Megan McArdle brings us this shocking news from the world of scientific research:

The Declining Hotness of Flight Attendants

Indeed, I have myself noticed this phenomenon during my frequent travels on the campaign trail. Also, cocktail waitresses seem to be becoming increasingly skanky. Further research, however, will be required during our upcoming trip to Las Vegas.

Hit the freaking tip jar!

 

Category: Celebrities, Crime, Fear and Smitty in Vegas

#OccupyWallStreet Clears Shark In Substantial Jump

Posted on | October 13, 2011 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

Not only does it sound as though the inevitable Soros link has surfaced, but the real boost is that no less than St. Albert of Gore has showered it with his golden credibility:

From the economy to the climate crisis our leaders have pursued solutions that are not solving our problems, instead they propose policies that accomplish little. With democracy in crisis a true grassroots movement pointing out the flaws in our system is the first step in the right direction. Count me among those supporting and cheering on the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Get thee stuffed, sirrah. Now #OWS just needs a Sean Penn endorsement for the full Duhfecta.

Update: linked by That Mr. G Guy

Update II: Drudge says three out of three extremist political goobers agree: #OWS needs its nappy changed.

Update III: Steve Crowder weighs in:

Category: #Occupy, Progressivism

Top Rubio Staffer Reportedly Pushed for Early Florida Primary to Help Romney

Posted on | October 13, 2011 | 127 Comments

* * * UPDATE OCT. 14 * * *

Marco Rubio Denies His Office
Influenced Florida Primary Date

PREVIOUSLY (OCT. 13)
* * * EXCLUSIVE * * *

When Florida defied Republican National Committee rules to move the state’s 2012 presidential primary from an RNC-approved March date to Jan. 31, conservatives immediately suspected that state party insiders had orchestrated the move to help former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney thwart the momentum of Tea Party-backed candidate Herman Cain. Some Florida activists focused their suspicion on moderates in state party leadership — allies of Senate candidate George LeMieux and of former Gov. Charlie Crist — as orchestrating the change in the primary date. The move was seen as helping the centrist Romney, whose superior fund-raising resources would enable him to score an early knockout in the Sunshine State before Cain could fully leverage the boost he got from an upset victory in a Sept. 24 Florida GOP straw poll.

Yet while the moderate Republican faction in Tallahassee was immediately blamed for the primary date-switch, only insiders knew that a key factor was a push from inside the staff of the Tea Party’s own 2010 hero, Sen. Marco Rubio. GOP sources in Washington and Florida say that Rubio’s senatorial chief of staff, Cesar Conda, has been a major force in persuading Florida Republicans to move their primary to January.

“Cesar used to be with Romney’s campaign,” one informed source explained to me in an interview today, adding: “Conda used his contacts to push the primary to the 31st because they want Romney in.”

Conda’s loyalty to Romney was highlighted in a Politico story by Scott Wong last week: “At least six past and current Rubio Senate aides, including chief of staff Cesar Conda and his deputy, Terry Sullivan, worked for Romney’s 2008 presidential bid, establishing a direct link and a line of communication between the front-runner for the 2012 GOP nomination and the front-runner in the Republican veepstakes. There’s also a trail of fundraisers, donors and consultants who have overlapping relationships with Rubio and Romney.”

In a March 2010 column for National Review, Conda defended the so-called “RomneyCare” Massachusetts health insurance program. A former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, Conda was originally an ally of Crist, as the St. Petersburg Times noted when Conda was picked as Rubio’s chief of chief in January 2011:

Like many Republicans, Conda once thought Charlie Crist would be the next senator but later distanced himself from the former Florida governor, saying he lacked conservative credentials.
Conda has worked as a lobbyist and analyst for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and founded the Washington office of Navigators, a lobbying/consulting firm where another top Rubio adviser, Todd Harris, also worked.
The firm’s clients included GlaxoSmithKline, At&T, Visa and Citigroup, which got $45 billion under the bank bailout.

Some have speculated that, by delivering Florida for Romney, Conda would not only help Romney lock up the 2012 presidential nomination, but also secure the 2012 vice-presidential pick for Rubio.

It was Rubio’s underdog campaign that helped spark Tea Party activism in Florida and across the nation. Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer and National Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) conspired to “fix” the 2010 Senate primary in Florida with a May 2009 endorsement of the moderate Crist. At that point leading Rubio by more than 30 points in polls, Crist was seen as the safe bet in Florida’s Senate race. But the Greer/Cornyn endorsement backfired, as conservatives pointed out Crist’s embrace of President Obama’s deficit-spending “stimulus” agenda and denounced the effort by party insiders to determine the Republican candidate 15 months ahead of the August 2010 primary. The newly aroused Tea Party movement made Rubio their hero. Crist, overwhelmed by the conservative rally for Rubio, quit the GOP to launch a doomed third-party Senate race. Crist’s ally Greer resigned in disgrace and is now under criminal indictment for corruption charges.

Reports that Rubio — or at least Rubio’s top aides — are working behind the scenes for Romney, who is seen as representing the RINO (“Republican In Name Only”) moderate wing of the party, will be a bitter disappointment for conservatives who supported Rubio’s insurgent campaign last year. Many Tea Party activists who backed Rubio against Crist in the 2010 primary are now supporting Cain, the conservative Atlanta businessman who has surged to the front of the the Republican presidential pack in the past three weeks.

Cain’s candidacy got a boost not only from his Sept. 24 straw-poll win, but also from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s announcement last week that she would not seek the White House in 2012. In an appearance on  Greta Van Susteren’s Fox News Channel program to discuss her decision, Palin singled out Cain for praise, saying she was “intrigued” and “impressed” with Cain’s “business acumen” and “up by the bootstraps” success.

The latest Rasmussen poll shows Cain tied with Romney nationally. Recent polls by Public Policy Polling and NBC/Wall Street Journal show Cain now leading Romney, and within 3 points of the longtime GOP frontrunner in the influential Real Clear Politics poll average. Meanwhile, a new poll of likely Florida Republican primary voters shows Cain now at 34% to Romney’s 28%, with former frontrunner Texas Gov. Rick Perry falling to a distant fourth at 5%, behind former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who was third with 11%.

— Robert Stacy McCain




 

UPDATE: Linked at Fire Andrea Mitchell — thanks!

UPDATE II: Michelle Malkin on Twitter:

UPDATE III: Headline from The Washington Post:

Mitt Romney attracts new support as donors
and elected officials coalesce behind him

Hmmm. Kinda like how the Establishment lined up behind Dede Scozzafava, isn’t it? And Herman Cain is Doug Hoffman in that analogy.

UPDATE IV: “Say it ain’t so, Marco.”

UPDATE V: “Rubio, Rubio! Wherefore art thou Rubio?”

UPDATE VI: Linked by Finrod at Red State — thanks! — and Bob Belvedere at Camp of the Saints, who wonders if Rubio is “crossing over to the Dark Side?”

UPDATE VII: Linked by Maggie’s Notebook — thanks! — and Da Tech Guy sees Team Romney replicating the errors of Team Coakley. Meanwhile, getting linked by Allahpundit at Hot Air inspired me to leave this comment:

If this, indeed, an effort to secure Rubio’s slot as running-mate for Romney, has anybody else noticed that (a) Herman Cain’s top campaign staffers are from Wisconsin and (b) Paul Ryan praised the 9-9-9 plan today?
IYKWIMAITYD.

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Category: Election 2012, Florida, Herman Cain, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Tea Party

Silvio Plays The ‘I May Be Incompetent, But I Am All You Have Got’ Card

Posted on | October 13, 2011 | 3 Comments

by Smitty

We need a term for this argument. How about Argumentum ad Gasbagam?

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi appealed for his political survival Thursday, telling parliament that his government is the only credible alternative to help guide the country through the growing sovereign debt crisis.
Berlusconi’s 3 1/2-year-old government faces a confidence vote Friday that will test if the premier retains a majority in Parliament. If the vote fails, Berlusconi must step down.

If I achieve any success as a blogger, I hope it is convincing people that liberty means ratcheting down the importance of government in general, and specific government figures in particular, to their minimum level of importance.

As I was attempting to articulate to Melissa Clouthier on Twitter the other day, the notion of people making themselves indispensable, itself, is the problem. Take the income tax. Take a fire axe to the income tax. Liberty will mean prying the cold, undead fingers of the government away from your wallet entirely, not electing somebody who promises reform in the form of an adjusted grip on the buttock.

When somebody tries to say you need them, the question needs to be: what are you doing to make the as simple as possible?

Update: speaking of that card:

Category: Italy

It’s Not So Much The VAT As The Precedent

Posted on | October 13, 2011 | 61 Comments

by Smitty

I concur with Ace’s objection to the idea of a VAT:

It should go without saying that the VAT is an exceptionally bad idea, whether it’s paired with a flat tax or a fair tax or any other tax and whether it replaces the federal income tax or not. Whatever its merits, they are outweighed by its key features: the VAT obscures for the taxpayer just how much money is being sucked up by the government; it is prone to Congressional abuse; and it is, in the words of economists, “efficient.”

Yes, you can put VAT on each and every sales receipt. But unless the taxpayer keeps and diligently tallies every receipt, he will have no idea what he’s ended up handing over to Uncle Sam.

This feature of the VAT is a tax-and-spend liberal’s wet dream because it keeps the taxpayer-voter in ignorance of how much of his property the government is appropriating over time. Even under the current complicated income tax scheme, the taxpayer-voter has a pretty good idea of how much of his annual income gets sent off to Washington, D.C. And he can then make reasonable predictions and demands and votes when Congress starts fiddling with tax rates. But for the average American, if Congress were to adjust a VAT, the question “how much does this affect me or my business” becomes difficult to answer. Again, unless the taxpayer-voter has been keeping track of his consumption.

And I respect Herman Cain very much. However, if you’re conservative, you might want to ask yourself: after Cain, who does the conserving?

Cain may respect Greenspan for having been a good Federal Reserve chair, for some value of ‘good’. However, as far as I can tell, the whole concept of the Federal Reserve has gone pear-shaped. And I don’t see how the VAT avoids sitting alongside the Federal Reserve as another tool for avoiding doing the correct, conservative, reasonable, responsible thing: saying ‘NO’.

  • Got a problem balancing the budget? VAT!

  • Need money to fund a project to buy some votes? Jack that VAT!
  • Got an economic feevuh? Call VAT man!
  • VAT! What is the question?

None of this is intended as a swipe at Herman Cain, whom I’ll happily support as GOP nominee. I’m just concerned that the real problem we face is an over-powered DC, and a VAT sets a precedent that, if history means aught, will be molested horribly within my lifetime.

Unlike the Boomers, who really don’t seem to care fig #1 about any generation past themselves, I think that we have to look really long and hard. The World’s Youngest Blogger is the guy I have to answer to about how we deal with the death of Progressivism. VATs are a really smashing success in Europe, as long as you don’t care that it’s your wallet getting smashed.

What I want to hear from candidates is how they’re going to deflate the Federal over-reach bubble. A federalist approach could diminish DC and restore the power of states and the federal government to act as vertical checks, even as we restore horizontal checks of Congress on the Executive. A VAT, on its own, won’t kill the American experiment, but it could be a contributor, mixed in with all of the other legacy Progressive ideas with which we seem strangely comfortable.

Update: linked at The Lonely Conservative.

Update II: A moment of agreement with Grover Norquist:

Norquist was even less sanguine about Cain’s 9-9-9 plan. “Having three taxes, all of which can grow – it’s like having three needles in your arm taking blood out, it’s much more dangerous than having one,” Norquist explained.

Category: Taxes

‘Pass This Jobs Bill — Or Thugs Will Rape and Murder You,’ Biden Implies

Posted on | October 13, 2011 | 19 Comments

“In 2008, when Flint had 265 sworn officers on their police force, there were 35 murders and 91 rapes in this city. In 2010, when Flint had only 144 police officers, the murder rate climbed to 65 and rapes — just to pick two categories – -climbed to 229. In 2011, you now only have 125 shields. God only knows what the numbers will be this year for Flint if we don’t rectify it.”
— Joe Biden, Oct. 12 in Flint, Michigan

Category: Crime, Joe Biden, Michigan

Nate Silver Wonders: Will N.H. Primary Move to December Backfire for Romney?

Posted on | October 13, 2011 | 23 Comments

Yesterday’s news that New Hampshire may move its primary to as early as Dec. 6 (!) was presumed to be good news for Mitt Romney, who has made the Granite State his must-win for 2012. But by a series of complex calculations, Nate Silver of Five Thirty Eight comes to the conclusion that a December primary for New Hampshire might be bad for Romney.

Like I said, it’s complex, but the basic idea is that by pulling Mitt’s sure winner out of the normal sequence, the December date would rob Romney of the perception of momentum heading into Nevada, South Carolina and Florida.

The front-loading scramble set off by Florida’s decision to jump from March to January has set in motion a chain-reaction of consequences and we don’t know what the ultimate result will be except . . .

Hit the freaking tip jar! Serious thanks to readers who have already contributed to the Shoe Leather Fund, because this front-loading has completely wrecked my plans for the campaign trail.

Before those treacherous bastards in Florida started this mess, the Iowa caucuses were scheduled for Feb. 6 — nearly four months away. That would have given me more than 100 days to raise travel money. Now Iowa’s tentatively slated for Jan. 3, meaning I’ve lost five weeks, and will probably have to leave for Des Moines the day after Christmas (Monday, Dec. 26) just to get in a week of coverage before the caucuses.

After that, it’s not yet clear, because if Nevada will move its caucuses from Jan. 14 to Jan. 17 (or later), New Hampshire could hold its primary Jan. 10. But if New Hampshire goes either Dec. 6 or Dec. 13, then I might have to leave Nov. 28 (the Monday after Thanksgiving) to get a complete week on the ground up there.

A full-speed trainwreck looms ahead, perhaps less than six weeks away, and meanwhile I’ve got to pay back Smitty for covering our trip to Vegas for the big debate Tuesday. And so I’m now rattling the tip jar like an epileptic on methamphetamine, because if I don’t have some kind of reserve built up by the time this whole thing kicks off, I might end up stranded next January in South Carolina with no way to make it to Florida, where I aim to wreak vengeance on the worthless RINO-hugging GOP Establishment sons of bitches who inflicted this catastrophe on me.





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Category: Election 2012, Florida, Mitt Romney, New Hampshire, Shoe Leather Fund

VIDEO: Brian Williams Announces NBC Poll Showing Herman Cain Leading

Posted on | October 13, 2011 | 37 Comments

Wanted to post this one as a record for history:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Comment? I got no comment. I’m just thinking back to CPAC, when I was introducing my friends in the hotel lobby bar to “the next president of the United States.” And they all thought I was kidding.

HERMAN CAIN for PRESIDENT
Because Everybody Keeps Saying He Can’t Win
And Yet Somehow He Just Keeps on Winning

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain, NBC, Polls, Video
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